Surprises
by classicdoctorwhorocks
Summary: Even in a dysfunctional family like the Enterprise, there are still plenty of things which remain unknown between them. This is the story of the crew's fears, talents, and history, and how they were discovered. Friendship fics mostly, but light Spock/Uhura as well.
1. Chapter 1

Surprises

**Okay, nobody's probably going to read this, but at least I've got your attention. I'm hoping to make this into a series of about 20 chapters. I'm afraid I don't have a good thing with schedules, what with school and that. I also have a bit of trouble with UK-US differences, because I'm from England. **

**So, my first one is about Lieutenant Sulu. To be honest, I think he was a kind of neglected character in both reboot movies, even though they are both awesome. The fact that J.J. Abrams inserted his fencing hobby in the 2009 movie only raises further questions about who he really is. I've also read up on his liking for plants, and put it into a chapter.**

**Disclaimer: Much to my despair and J.J. Abrams's delight, I still do not own anything related to Star Trek. **

1.

Nobody really knew Sulu, Chekov realized. How was it that, after working alongside the same man for over six months, he still didn't know what the Asian did in his spare time? Now he knew.

He didn't usually go into the botany lab, due to an unpleasant encounter with a yellow plant on his first visit. It had been ages until the orangey-pink rash and the sneezing had disappeared. However, the yellow monstrosity had long since died, and the young man finally went back into the lab.

Somehow, the air in Botany seemed fresher than the sanitised air on the Bridge. He supposed it was the oxygen which most of the plants were producing. The lab was empty, probably preparing for their first touchdown on their five-year mission.

He noticed a door in the far corner. There was a sign on it, written in strangely familiar handwriting. It said: KEEP OUT. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. Chekov, being Chekov, decided to enter.

He had barely passed through the door when he heard what sounded like a handful of rusted nails being dragged down a blackboard. A disfigured head emerged from the near-darkness, and grinned at him with what he realized weren't teeth, but hard flexible fronds. Recalling something from a long-forgotten biology lesson, he recognised the creature as a Venus flytrap plant. He stared wide-eyed at the massive head, before closing his eyes in terror.

Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice yell, "Down, Penelope!" For a second, he wondered if it was somebody calling a dog, and then remembered that he was on a starship. He realized that the "Penelope" was in fact the plant. "Penelope" withdrew its head almost apologetically, and a man rushed over.

"Are you alright? I'm so sorry, I should have restrained her before going to check on Ruth… Didn't you read the sign? Hang on, _Chekov?!_" The Russian looked up, to find himself looking into the face of Hikaru Sulu.

"Meester Sulu! I vas looking for you!" He raised an eyebrow. "I believe zis eez… Penelope?" The lieutenant sighed.

"Hikaru will do just fine. And the name Penelope seemed a much better idea when she was six centimetres tall."

"Eez zat vhy you wolunteer to go on so many avay meessions?" Chekov said in disbelief. "So you can smuggle man-eating plants onto ze sheep under your coat and keep zem in your… den?!"

"Yeah," The Asian said nonchalantly. "Pretty much. But Penelope is actually a mutated strain of the sample of what was brought aboard about five weeks ago from another ship. The chief botanist heard about my, erm, hobby, and spared a section for me to experiment in."

"How did I not know about zis?! Ve share ze same qvarters!"

"You never asked," Sulu pointed out.

Chekov realized how true that was. On the bridge- where they saw the most of each other- they barely said a word about what was happening outside their current job, except maybe a small gem of gossip about who liked who, and what other people liked to do. So when he realized just how many hobbies this man had- the Captain had been unable to count them off on both hands- he had searched for his colleague first in the gym, and then in the labs.

"Vell, I am askeeng now," Chekov offered, smiling at his friend. "Now, do you zink zat you could introduce me to… vhat you call her… Ruth?" Sulu rolled his eyes.

"I'm never going to live this out, am I?"

"Nope. Sir."

After lunch in the cafeteria, Sulu headed for the gym for a few hours of gymnastics before his next shift. Next to his usual corner, he found a cheese sandwich and a bottle of replicated apple juice.

Somebody must have accidentally left them behind. Sulu smiled, and reached for the sandwich.


	2. Chapter 2

**This next one is quite short, and reveals that Pavel Chekov, despite what some people might think, has a sense of humour. I know the whole poem thing seems a bit weird, but it came a bit spontaneously.**

**Thank you to T'Xiao and patrixs for their reviews.**

**2.**

Jim Kirk leaned back in his chair. It felt good to be back in it, after three weeks of leave on Earth.

"Ensign Chekov, please give a message to the ship's crew before takeoff to the planet of Limerick." Despite the other crew on the bridge, who giggled slightly at the name, Chekov did not crack a smile. Geez, when would that boy laugh for once? For a boy of eighteen, he was way too controlled, at least in Jim's opinion. Admittedly, he had been the dictionary's own definition of "bad apple".

He watched as the Russian leaned forward, and pressed a button. He spoke in his usual tone, invaded slightly by his accent.

"Hello and good stardate to you,  
On this shipvide message to ze crew.  
To new planets ve go,  
In ten meenutes so  
Be qvte sure to go to ze loo."

Chekov pressed the OFF button, with an air of finality. There was complete silence.

"That was… unexpected," Spock said, quirking an eyebrow.

As if a switch had been flipped, everybody started laughing. Including Chekov.


	3. Chapter 3

**Woah! Just got a massive response from my email alerts! This is probably the biggest response I've got to any of my stories so far. Right, another one about the crew, this time Scotty, on the grounds that he only appeared for about half an hour during the second movie. He's still cool, though.**

**3.**

At first, "Bones" McCoy would not believe that Scotty was good with kids.

Yeah, he was easy to talk to, and a bloody brilliant engineer, but he also had the mouth of a sailor, which he really couldn't control most of the time. Even the doctor himself knew to keep a lid on it when he commed Joanna. Of course, being on one of the most disaster-prone starships in the universe, children never really came into their lives.

Until now.

During their return to Earth for basic repairs, they received news of another Federation starship, known as the USS Serendipity, which had crashed into one of Saturn's moons. Seventy-eight percent of the crew died from either the impact, or the slow loss of oxygen and air pressure. When the Enterprise found them, a total of twenty people were still alive, including a child from the ship's "nursery", whose parents had asphyxiated. The girl was deaf, either from pressure or she had always been that way.

Three days after the crash, the child still had yet to utter a sound. Five of the Serendipity's crew were up and about, and one had even started doing basic errands around the Enterprise. The girl, believed to be about seven, stared at the floor of the sickbay, withdrawn in silence. Bones had been pumping the basic necessities into the kid's blood, but he knew it couldn't go on.

Finally, nobody was in the sickbay except the kid, and the occasional routine engineering incident.

The doctor was not surprised to see Scotty in the sickbay. Despite being the only redshirt who hadn't died at least once (except Uhura), there were some pretty close shaves. However, this time he appeared unscathed, and was holding something furry.

"Ah'd laek tae see th' wean," The Scot said quietly. Bones took a few seconds to translate this into what he considered Standard English.

"You wanna see the kid, huh? No problem. Good luck gettin' anything outta her, though. She hasn't paid attention to anything since she came on."

"Ah. Well, ah have sommat which might cheer up th' lass." The Southern doctor inspected the thing that the engineer was clutching.

"A tribble?" He said dubiously. "Look Scotty, tribbles do have a tranquillizing effect in their voice, but this kid's deaf! How will she hear it?"

"She donnae have ta."

"She donnae- oh, I give up. I can't understand you anyway. Go ahead." Scotty nodded empathetically, and walked slowly to where the girl was sitting. She peered at the new arrival under her thick fringe of black hair.

McCoy stifled a groan. Most of what Scotty had to say was pretty important, but he had a tendency to go on a bit. He remembered their last full-length conversation, which went from work to faulty pipes to patients to Captain Kirk, and then somehow to anchovies. With no sound, Scotty talking would be like one of Spock's lectures on xenophysiology… underwater.

However, Scotty did not speak. Instead, he sat down next to the kid, and pressed the tribble firmly against her chest. The furry object, as was its custom, shook slightly in pleasure, and uttered its famous cooing trill. Bones's thoughts were invaded suddenly by pink fluffy unicorns, as the newly released endorphins made themselves known. He shook his head, disgruntled.

To Bones's surprise, the girl giggled. The sound only pleased the furry creature, which cooed even louder. Scotty smiled, and pressed lightly on the tribble, causing it to squeak. Before long, the girl was shrieking with mirth.

Bones quickly wiped the idiotic grin off of his face- damn endorphins- and continued to watch. The girl had stopped laughing, and was now eyeing the Scot cautiously. Suddenly, she made a small string of gestures with her hands. Sign language. It couldn't have been caused by the crash if she already knew sign language, the doctor mused.

He was shocked as he saw the Scotty's hands moving in a similar way, moving in a blur in a response to his new friend's signs. The girl smiled at him. Scotty jumped up, and strode over to where Bones was still standing.

"What the hell was that?" Bones asked in amazement.

"Sign language. Could ye no' tell?" The engineer said simply. "She says her name's Mira, she was born on th' Serendipity tae two lieutenants, she misses her mam, an' she can lip-read. Is tha' enough info f'r ye t' go with?"

"But how the heck do you know sign language?"

"Well, ah dinnae kno' any afore I heard about the wean, then ah read up a wee bit. Jus' the basics, ye understand."

"Yes," Bones said faintly. _How did people understand him?_ "And… the tribble?"

"Ach, ah read up on tha', as well. Turns out it inna th' sound that's go' the tranquillizin' effects, it's th' vibrations. Some gobbledygook about tones and… wha'ever. Nyota seemed t' understand it aw'right."

"Okay, Scotty," was all he could manage. After all, what could you say to that? "You can go now. It is after visiting hours, after all."

"Git."

"Haggis face."

"Haggis face?! Och, tha's a new one."

"Are you coming again?"

"Aye, mebbe. She's the politest lass I've ever come across. Then again, maybe she just doesna' kno' any swear words in sign language. Tha' could be somethin' ah could-"

"_Goodbye, Scotty._"

"Aw'right! Keep yer hair on!" As the engineer left the sickbay, leaving the child to fawn over her new pet, Bones was left to his thoughts.

_Pink, fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows.  
Pink, fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows.  
Pink…_

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Bloody endorphins.


End file.
